Length: 11.55 miles
Toughness: 5
out of ten
Trains: CharingX: 10.04; W’loo East 10.07; London Brdg 10.13. Arrive Tonbridge 10.46. CHANGE onto the 11.01 train from Tonbridge to Leigh (arrives Leigh 11.05)
Ticket type:
Return ticket to Tunbridge Wells
Description: This is a pretty walk with a choice of nice lunchtime
pubs. The route is through a landscape of great beauty, confirming the
description of Kent as the Garden of England. The walk goes through the grounds
of Penshurst Place, with fine views of the house, taking in a truly pastoral
landscape of rivers, lakes, woods and rolling hills; and passes through the
lovely village of Penshurst. The walk then makes its way along the River Medway
and into historic Royal Tunbridge Wells, through woods and parks which extend
right into the heart of the town.
Full details
of the walk including directions, map and GPX can be found here: https://www.walkingclub.org.uk/walk/leigh-to-tunbridge-wells/index.html
Lunch: suggested lunchtime stop is
the Spotted Dog (tel 01892
870 253 ) at
Smart's Hill, some 6.4 km (a third) into the walk.
Nearby is
another large and popular pub, the Bottle House Inn (tel 01892 870 306 ).
Picnic: The All Souls Chapel near
Poundsbridge is a good picnic spot with benches in its pleasant churchyard,
approximately 30 min walk away from The Spotted Dog pub.
Tea: Lots of options in Tunbridge
Wells.
L=1.15
2 comments:
Return trains from T Wells: 15.38, 16.05, 16.34, 17.05, 17.38
N=16 on this walk, including one who had set out to walk with another group and failed to find it. We hope she enjoyed her day with us.
The weather started cloudy and there was discussion about whether the forecast was for rain later. But if it was, it was wrong, because w=it-cleared-to-sun-in-the-afternoon - a gorgeous ending to the day.
There was a sizeable sandwichista complement on this walk, with only six wanting a pub lunch. The Bottle House was decided upon, which had a decent menu, if a bit heavy on the meat and light on the potatoes. (As usual the fish and chips looked the most calorific option.) Two joined us for drinks. I was cast in my usual role of looking wistfully out of the windows at the outside tables while we ate inside in the gloom.
We never saw the sandwichistas again so they may like to add their own report. The eight of us from the pub ploughed on across the immense afternoon section (two thirds of the walk). I thought I knew this quite well, but large stretches of it were quite unfamiliar to me and some of the views very dramatic.
We were congratulating ourselves on how dry the paths were and how muddy they would have been a few weeks ago. But the Gods laugh at the pretentions of mortals! Several gloopy bits were soon provided. Those who picked their way carefully around these to minimise mud on their boots got their comeuppance later in the shape of a narrow mud-filled path down a hill, where we all filled our boots, so to speak.
Towards the end I was probably the only person who stopped in Hurst Wood to inspect the wood anemones. But alas, there were very few. Maybe there are more to come, or maybe the big displays of the past are no more. A compensating factor was the birdsong, both on this section and the whole last quarter of the walk: competing blackbirds, nuthatches, chiffchaffs (our first summer migrants), woodpeckers drumming, great tits, blue tits, robins…. A real sense that spring was finally here.
I was all ready to sit on a log and surrender myself to all this, but my companion pressed relentlessly on to get to the Pantilles in time for tea. This seemed a folorn hope to me, but when we got there at 4.50pm we were able to inveigle a “takeaways only now” cafe to let us sit on their terrace with tea and chocolate fudge cake. When the walk poster turned up a bit later, the cafe seemed to have reverted to serving tea in china cups. We sat there a good while, enjoying the ambience, then got the 18.05 home.
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